


Five times the Smuggler Talked to the Spy (and one time he didn't)

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: 5 Times, Cassian Andor-centric, Cassian Lives, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Star Wars Rare Pairs Exchange, Star Wars Rare Pairs Exchange 2018, jyn does too but she doesn't show up much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-04 22:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16798630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: Six moments between a smuggler and the Rebellion's best spy.Five times they disagreed on the finer details of rebellion, personal safety, and love. One time they didn't.Han/Cassian, partial AU for Cassian's survival after Scarif





	Five times the Smuggler Talked to the Spy (and one time he didn't)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookykingdomstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/gifts).



1.

The Cantina was loud and dirty, and mostly devoid of anyone sober enough to notice the young man slip into the room. His brown hair still had sand in it, and his clothes gave nothing away about where he was from, or where he might be. Spying the only being in the room with eyes still open, Cassian approached. The man was about his age, and resting his booted feet on a second chair, his head tipped back in what might have been mistaken for sleep, had his fingers not been tapping a rhythm against the chair. Cassian asked, “Anyone sitting here?”

“My feet,” the man said, with a trace of Corellian drawl, which matched the bloodstripe design on his trousers. Corellians were a scrappy bunch, and Cassian was not at all surprised to find this one employed by Jabba the Hutt. What he was surprised to find was that the man was surprisingly sober.

Which was a shame.

Cassian needed to get him drunk, and fast, if he had a chance of learning who the Hutt had sold that weapons stash to. If Cassian could get ahead of this lead, the Rebels would be able to double the size of their armor. “Whatcha drinking?” he tried for that smooth tone that usually worked in situations that called for flirting. It felt fake to him, faker than anything else he had to do as a spy.

“Nothing you can afford.”

“Hey,” he protested.

“I’ve got expensive taste, what can I say?” he gave a little effortless shrug.

So did Cassian. Rebellion was expensive, both in credits, and in other costs. Like the bloodstains on his hands. They’d washed off, of course, in the purely physical sense, but he could not yet rid himself of the memory.

The cantina band droned on behind them. There was a time, perhaps, when Cassian was very young, that he might have found the music lively, or at least entertaining. Now, all he could think about was if it would hide the sound of a blaster shot, if worse came to worse.

“Something I can do for you, pal?” The man asked, since Cassian had stayed quiet.

He was trying to think of a clever line, when at that moment, a Wookie entered the room. This one was mottled shades of brown, and rather well-armed, for a Wookie. The Corellian lifted his head, and asked, “you done with the shipment?”

The Wookie replied in its own language, which the man seemed to understand, because he then asked, “and old man Eldwi paid up? He’s always skimping on what he agreed.”

Another growl from the Wookie, but now, Cassian’s interest was piqued. Eldwi was a known small-time warlord who lived close to Jabba’s palace. Could that be the lead he was looking for?

"Bout damn time," the man, now revealed as a smuggler of at least weapons, and knowing Jabba's trade, most likely spice as well, said. “I’ll tell Jabba.”

Cassian faded into the shadows of the mostly empty cantina, as only he could. He was made of shadows, made to fade away. Made to be forgotten.

* * *

2.

The casino was located about halfway down one of Coruscant’s highly disreputable skyscrapers, the sort that had long since been abandoned for taller, cleaner structures. Inside, games of sabaac were played with more than just credit chips on the line. Cassian had seen guns, ships, even lives, traded across the table in his time staking it out, waiting for his hit.

The hit that was currently halfway across the crowded room and headed toward the exit.

“We need a diversion,” the voice of his companion crackled over the radio, tracking the hit’s progress. It was easier for Cassian to think of the man as just that that, just a hit, just a target, not a man with a family, with a past, with hopes and dreams.

“Yeah, and I need a shower. We ain’t getting either unless…” Cassian trailed off. “Wait a moment.”

He knew that man. Not well, not enough to know his name, but that swagger had embedded itself in his memory. It had only been a few months ago that he’d seen him in the cantina adjacent to Jabba’s palace. Months in which that smug face had made more than a few appearances in Cassian’s dreams.

“I think you owe me a drink,” the smuggler said, leaning on the bar.

Great. He was drunk. This time, Cassian could use a sober man, someone a little more predictable, and instead, he’d gotten one who was too drunk to stand up straight. Well, that would just have to do. “I’d get it for you… but that bartender told me he doesn’t serve my kind.”

It was one of the oldest, easiest ways to start a bar fight. Here, who knew exactly what that term referred to. Bipeds? Humanoids? People with brown hair?

Of course, the drunk smuggler had to ask, “and what’s your kind?”

The intercom buzzed in his ear. “Target is tracking further toward door. We need a distraction, and now.”

“Somebody who wants to buy a handsome guy like you a drink.”

It worked. It worked a little too well. The smuggler leaned over, grabbed the bartender, and punched him in the face. Then, shouted, “CHEWIE! Make a path!”

There was the unmistakable sound of a Wookie’s roar, followed by the scream of a man in terror. Soon, utter pandemonium erupted in the illicit casino.

Mission. Accomplished.

* * *

3.

Names were traded. It seemed like the smuggler’s one was real, or as real as any self-given name could be. Cassian gave him an alias, but moments later, when Han staggered forward to kiss him, hard, he found he couldn’t remember that alias, or any fake name of his at all.

Then the fight had followed them outside, and he’d had no choice but let Han lead him to a safer place.

Hours later, the two spoke quietly in a small room in the back of the ship he’d called the Falcon. It was a battered, often-repaired ship, the sort Cassian was very familiar with, and he fought the urge to relax inside it. His cynicism increased by the day, but some small part of him clung to silly beliefs. Like the idea that the man standing before him might want to join the Rebellion.

Cassian had meant to explain that to him, but then, they’d started kissing. Bodies pressed together in the small cargo hold, callused hands exploring under tattered clothes. Both of them, like the ship, were made of broken parts, soldered back together with stubbornness and grit.

Neither of them, of course, wanted to talk about that. Instead, as they lay together after, their breathing slowing back down from their impassioned heights, Cassian whispered what he’d wanted to say earlier. Explained the Rebellion, his own work, as much as he could say to anyone, and then, before Han could say anything else, Cassian finished with, “you know, we could use a pilot like you.”

There was a long pause before the smuggler spoke. “I don’t believe in that word.”

“Pilot?”

Han shook his head. “We.”

Anything Cassian might have said, any argument he had, dried up. That word encompassed all he did. Every choice he made, every shot he’d fired had been for the good of the many. The _we_ that encompassed all life.

All lives except those he’d had to take in service to the Rebellion.

All lives except those like Han and Chewie, who he’d let get tangled up in this mess. They knew too much now. He couldn’t let them go.

But he couldn’t _take care of the situation_ as his orders often stated either. Not when the past few hours had been the first moments of pleasure he had known in over a year. Not when Han was resting his head on Cassian’s chest, content with his warmth, if not his politics.

Not when, for a moment, he’d been stupidly, selfishly, happy.

“Is there anything I can say to convince you?” he asked.

“Doubtful,” Han replied. “I’m set in my ways, kid.”

“I think I’m older than you.”

“Yeah, well, my ship, my rules.”

Cassian let himself laugh, and then, turned to kiss the pilot again. “Ever try Oolorian Vodka?” he whispered, his heart hammering in his chest.

“Nope. Good stuff?”

“The best.”

Not the best at taste, but the absolute best at making recent memories quite fuzzy. Cassian's own memories of that night would haunt him for far longer.

* * *

4.

The ship made a landing on Scarif’s shore that could only be called breathtaking… and stupid. Sand crashed around its mostly circular body, and the rear thrusters barely kept the Corellian light freighter from being swallowed by the sea.

Not that the sea, the ship, or any of them, would be alive much longer.

“Get in here!” A voice shouted. The voice itself barely registered, though some part of Cassian’s battered mind told him the voice should be listened to, if not obeyed.

“Chewie, grab them!”

And then, a massive furred arm wrapped itself around Cassian, around Jyn, who gave a little protest of a squeak. The shore moved beneath them. They were moving. The Wookie was carrying them to the ship that really shouldn’t have been able to make that landing.  
They were… going to make it off this planet?

Was this a rescue?

Who was crazy enough to do it?

The Wookie’s feet pounded up the metal ramp into the ship. A wave of memories hit Cassian, of the last time he’d been on this ship, of exactly who might the stupidly brave pilot be.

Cassian’s brain had more than enough to deal with in the last forty-eight hours, before the addition of a possible romantic rescue. He fainted.

When he woke, it was to Han leaning over him. “Talk to me.”

He shouldn’t. He should find a comm. Figure out what happened to the plans, the princess, the others…

Pain shot through him. The others were gone. Their faces flashed in his mind, vivid, bright, as painful as a vibroblade between the ribs. He closed his eyes.

“Talk.” Han said again, “Damn it, man, you look like you’ve been to hell and back.”

The first part of that sentence was certainly true. He just wasn’t sure if he was back. Or if this was some desperate fever dream, spun together in the last few moments of life.

Cassian’s bloody hand reached up to touch Han’s face. The stubble was rough against his palm. Cassian knew then, that this was no dream. He had survived. But he didn’t want to talk about it. Not to Han. Not to anyone. Instead, he answered Han’s questions with kisses, offered touches instead of answers, and sighs instead of words.

“Look,” Han pulled back. “I see what you’re doing. You don’t wanna talk? That’s fine. But I’m gonna talk, and you can nod or shake your head or whatever, cause we gotta get you and your pal to a safe place for you two, you hear? I ain’t getting mixed up in whatever you just did. I came for you. Not your damn cause.”

No. Cassian didn’t need to talk. Not when Han’s words made everything so clear. He was alone, more now than ever. No words could fill that gap, no matter how hard Han tried.

He had no idea, when Han dropped him and Jyn off in a rendezvous point, that the next time he’d see the smuggler, the idiot would have become a war hero for the cause he'd so professed his hatred of.

* * *

5.

The cold air crackled around the two men, their breath turning to white clouds with each word. And there were a lot of words being said that night, between them, as the evacuation order sounded. Time was running out, in more ways than one.

“You are NOT staying on Hoth. Are you mad? After what happened to you in the last skirmish? You still have a damn bacta patch on your face! How you gonna shoot at imps like that, huh?” Han’s hands reached out to grab Cassian’s shoulders, as if to shake him, only to remember just how injured he was. The touch turned gentle, revealing the side of Han that Cassian had gotten to know in quiet moments, in the nighttime moments, these past few months. "We just got you out of the sick bay!"

“Thought you didn’t believe in that word.” Cassian's voice was as cold and quiet as the night beyond the Rebel base was.

“What?” Han was mad enough even his question sounded like a shout. 

“We.”

Han shook his head. “You’re going to die here. You’re gonna die on this damn ice cube, fighting for this stupid rebellion that’s already almost killed you what, six times?”

If K-2SO was still around, he’d say it was closer to sixty, in the past year alone. But if K-2SO was still here... well, he'd probably have taken Han's side on more than one argument. The two would have gotten along well. Both bitter, both stubborn, both utterly convinced they knew best how to protect Cassian. 

“This is all I have.” Cassian replied. He’d lost everything else. Everyone but Jyn was gone. Even she was gone, in her own way. Still a part of the Rebellion, of course. They’d both signed that contract in their blood and the blood of all they’d not been able to save, but Jyn had a new road to follow. One that Cassian wasn’t part of. She had her lover, and he had… well. Whatever he’d had with Han. Not that they’d ever used a foolish word like love to sum up their connection.

Not that they’d ever even talked about what they were to each other.

“You’re wrong,” Han snarled. He spun on his heel, ready to walk away. And then, paused, turned…

Was this the moment then? Was the smuggler-turned-general-turned-desert finally going to stumble back into the Rebellion for good? How many chances did he need, really, to see that some things were just more important than one life, than one person?

Han came only an inch away from Cassian and looked down at him. Just as confident, just as stubborn, as that first day they’d met. “You’re wrong,”

“Yeah, you’ve said that already.”

“You could have had me.” Han gripped his collar, kissed him hard, hard enough for Cassian to see stars, to imagine the whole galaxy before them, to feel hope, not for the Rebellion, but for his own happiness, something he’d long since abandoned, rise within him for one moment.

The kiss was a promise, an offer, a thousand things he couldn’t take Han up on.

The kiss was everything he wanted, and nothing a man like Cassian deserved to have.

He pulled back. This time, it was Cassian who turned his back. He, who shot more than one man as they’d fled from him, offering that same vulnerability to Han.

The only difference was that Han wasn’t the type to kill a coward.

* * *

_And one time he didn't_

Han was sleeping, peacefully, after the battle of Endor. The bed was little more than a pile of leaves, the blanket one of those green ponchos they’d been given as a hastily made uniform.

He blinked awake, looking up at Cassian.

It had been a long, long fight to get to this moment. His ears still rang with the percussives of battle, and he had numerous small wounds that would require care, at some point. Not now.

He felt pretty damn good right now.

Because Cassian had never seen anything that looked as much like home as that smile. For once, nothing needed to be said. There were no arguments, no disagreements on matters of politics or beliefs or even piloting charts. They didn’t even need to say anything about the things that were lost in that last battle, either. There would be time for that grief, too, after the celebrations faded.

Words couldn’t contain all that lay before them, either. The future was bright, but terrifyingly so, for a man who had given his whole life to a cause, and a man who had thrown away a life to join that cause. Both of them were more accustomed to life in the shadows, a life of danger and deception and fear, than a life spent in the sunlight of a new era.

But that discussion, as vast as any sun, could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, they didn’t need to say anything at all. Cassian knelt next to Han, who moved the poncho aside, a wordless gesture inviting him closer. For once, Han had no smart remark, no flirty little comment. And neither did Cassian, though he'd thought of several as he'd dragged his injured self toward where Leia had pointed him, when Han had slunk away from the celebrations.

They lay together, that night, silently, staring up at the stars of a galaxy that might finally know peace, and they were happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are very welcome and kudos are delightful!


End file.
